Breath of the Wild
Hiding behind a tree while building a self-study curriculum for the next few months
When I close my eyes, I see things glitter and move and explode. There are flashes of purple, light flying in all directions. I am squinting through fog looking for glowing orange and blue of tall spires and squat shrines, stone exteriors writhing with archaic patterns. — It may be that I’ve spent most of my free time this week playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Part of me knows this is a retreat from the world, an instinctive attempt to duck the overwhelm, the anxiety, and what may or may not be something more. Part of me is worried about this. Part of me doesn’t care. With more than 120 puzzles to solve, 900 playful forest spirits to uncover, and miles and miles and miles of grassland, mountains, and forests to run through, I could be here a while… unless my frustration gets the better of me.
Thank you to those who read and commented last week.
This week: ⭐ A self-study curriculum ⭐ A rainbow ⭐ Chalk ⭐ Diane Keaton ⭐ November writing ⭐ And more
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“I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am rooted, but I flow.”
— Virginia Woolf, The Waves
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I hope you are inspired to make time each day for your creative habits, to value the documentation of your journey, and to explore the halls of memory.
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Thank you for reading.
Loose Leaf 03
No essay today. I have been writing about fog, and stone, and thinking, still, about wolves, but no essay today. I am acutely aware of a persistent haziness, the edges smudged and fuzzy, a lack of focus, and a sense that in stringing thoughts together, I am either playing with strands of the galaxy or wandering incoherently in an ever-shrinking nebula. I am feeling a level of scatter and disconnect that has all kinds of warning bells sounding.
This morning, after I drew a pumpkin-head person to kick off Week 43 in my illustrated journal with my group, I delayed sitting down to finalize this post. I had decided I wouldn’t send this one by email. That decision made it so that it didn’t seem pressing to deal with a final edit (or what turned into adding sections like this and the stream-of-consciousness recounting, a glimpse into the way real overwhelm is manifesting in a fracturing of focus and inconsequential scatter).
The Loose Leaf setup is, by design, a bit of a breather and a bit of a catch-all, a structure that breaks up weeks where I share more intentional and “writerly” essays and creative nonfiction (e.g., the writing I most care about), but between last night and this morning, I was already debating some of what I’ve included below. This is a constant tug of war, even when the details are, largely, superficial.1
Thank you for reading.
Amy
Personal Curriculum: I am lining up some self-study for the remaining weeks of the year. That this is a very popular thing to do might typically send me running the other way, but (given my overall sense of being adrift) I hope this kind of intentional process will bring some focus. I’ve gotten waylaid a few times over the last year by unsuccessfully hinting at possible shared projects here, things that never materialized. This personal curriculum gently forces me to refocus the lens. I think I am always doing some kind of self-directed study, but maybe setting up some scaffolding and ironing out something a bit more concrete will be an effective catalyst. I’ve spent time clarifying my objectives and reading list(s) and setting some things up in Notion. (That kind of busywork is always focused. It’s one of the things I do best.) — With the short stretch to the end of the year, this is a trial, one that I expect might flounder a bit, but that’s what I need to see. What I learn from how I respond to setting this up will give me insight and help me think about the coming year, too. It wasn’t easy to narrow down my huge list of “things” to just a few tracks, but I think I’ve got a balanced plan. The nice thing about a self-directed course of study is that nothing is really lost if it all goes up in a puff of smoke.
Going Solo: One of the most unexpected tracks I’ve lined up is exploratory, a melding of writing and playing. I’m partly testing some waters and mostly convinced this will not be my cup of tea, but I’m curious enough to want to spend some time experimenting.
Weird Weather: Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about talking about weather, but there was some kind of deluge this week, more rain in ten minutes than I’ve ever seen. The temperature dropped something like 25 degrees, and the house dropped to 59. (We wear layers and keep the heat at 63 in the dead of winter, so a sudden 59 felt cold.) — Shortly after coming in from the rain, I stumbled into the kitchen to make a late afternoon coffee, and there was a giant rainbow out the window. The windows are dirty, and what you see out the window is the roof of the house next door because of the slope of the hill. It’s not a glamour shot, but the rainbow was beautiful.2
When I ran across this Instagram post today, I had to include it:3
Where’s the Chalk: My oldest was home last weekend, and one of the things he has been doing this quarter is a “let me get a piece of chalk” shtick. At the start of each class, he stops to get chalk, which he pulls from something unexpected, like a playing cards box or a prescription bottle. (He’s charming, funny, and really well-liked by students. He can pull this quirky thing off.) I think it’s a clever idea, the kind of simple thing that can grow with you for years. He doesn’t collect anything, so, of course, I see this as a fun collection to build. — I had fun looking around the house for a few containers that might work. One of the things I found was a family memento, something sentimental to me, unusual, brass, and engraved with the initials of a family member. I think it might have been designed to hold a pack of gum sticks. (I think I might have used it for a different purpose when it was given to me.) He seemed less excited about it than some of the other things. I guess it’s less obviously playful, but it seemed perfect to me. At the very least, if the chalk fits, it’s a good travel holder. I did talk to him, too, about the old shirts.
💡 For mathematicians, chalk is a really big deal. That became clear when all he wanted for his birthday a few years ago was Hagoromo chalk, the chalk that math people use.4
Family Stone: I am a big Diane Keaton fan, and both Family Stone and Love, the Coopers are personal favorites.5 I was really sad to see the news, and I was really bothered by the public hounding about the cause of death. (Yes, I know they have now attributed the death to pneumonia.) I’m just not sure we are owed that information simply because someone is a public figure. I realize this is an unpopular view. I’ve been told that the public needs to know to be able to process the death of a public figure, someone they feel they know. (I guess I can see that.) Either way, the frenzied whirlwind of speculation that kicked into gear when the cause of death was initially withheld was startling.
Unfinished pages from my illustrated journal for Week 42, including an unfinished sketch of Diane Keaton (from The Family Stone) in colored pencil. A. Cowen 2025 As a side note: I was surprised to learn about Keaton’s history with collage. There are several examples in this post, a reprint of an interview (from what I can tell) from Feel Free (2023). I also enjoyed The Daily Heller: Diane Keaton’s Really Neat Photo Book.
Letting Go: I didn’t do an October series this year for the first time in maybe eight years. It was more of a non-decision than a decision, which seems true right now in all parts of my life. After letting the start slide by, it is hard to realize now that the month is already more than half over. — I am thinking fondly of the November light tracking last year. Tempting.
November Writing: I am not writing the great American anything, but I enjoy daily challenges, and I participated in NaNoWriMo for many years. I saw that there are a few replacements this year trying to fill the NaNoWriMo space. I looked at Novel November, but I’m a bit skeptical of the host. Last year, looking for a NaNoWriMo community, I joined several Discord servers, but none of them were right for me. I did track with TrackBear, which is super basic. It isn’t glossy, but it was good for a bit of extra accountability. (For some of us, that kind of logging really works, and doing it in a public way rather than with a solo Notion database somehow reinforces what is, really, an exercise in self-accountability.) — In recent months, I have tried a few weekly writing sessions via another site. While it isn’t really a “make friends” and “get to know everyone” model (e.g., while you do have to say what you are working on and how it went, there is no other chit-chat), I like the group I’ve attended. In reality, I write plenty and just fine on my own.
I guess I’m just always looking for some kind of community that will stick.
Journal Prompt—Wasting Time
We all waste a certain amount of time, and we make choices about how we fill time. For some people, it may be scrolling. For others, it may be TV. For you, it may be something else entirely. Think about how you use your free and expendable time and what things might be looked at as time wasters and whether or not you think that is true.
I’m not sure we have to always be being productive or doing more for our time to be considered well spent.
Like you, I can’t fit everything in, but I am after balance. Of course, what qualifies as balance is also very individual. I think it’s healthy to look at the choices we make and how much time we allot to certain things and how those things make us feel.
Looking Back (same time year over year)
2024: Pie in the sky and (still) awkward affirmations — I miss last year’s daily comic affirmations project. I really do. This post was many months after that. I have a soft spot for the posts where I continue(d) to stick my neck out with simple graphic novel pieces because I just can’t stop myself from believing that I should be doing that.
2023: Morning Routines, Screens, and Fifteen Minutes — Yeah. This is a battle I continue to lose. I try to resist scrolling right away, but my current reflection/journaling mechanisms do involve screens. I had fun trying to create illustrations for this post. (Back then, I thought I would get to the point where my weekly posts would be illustrated.)
Illustrated Journal Prompts
Made It?
Thank you for reading along! I always enjoy your comments and invite you to chime in.
Does the remainder of the year seem short or long to you?
Share an affirmation you need.
I’ve been mulling about what to watch next. I haven’t even had the TV on in days. I think something in my recent thinking and research coupled with something that ended up in today’s post has given me the answer though. Any guesses?6
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It went something like this, but with a full-on blur to the movements, time warping through a fish-eye lens.
[Removed. So many unsubscribes!]
I know many of us are going through some version of overwhelm, scatter, chaos, and maybe even breakdown, with the confluence of whatever is happening in our personal lives and the tilt-a-whirl reality of the world as it is. We are all looking for answers and coping mechanisms and ways to grapple with reality.
I guess I could have rushed back outside to take a photo, but it honestly never occurred to me. I was intent on getting coffee and back to work.
This is the benefit of delaying posting! I really do love rainbow-striped intersections.
In looking it up to make sure I got the brand name correct, I found multiple articles about Hagoromo chalk, including this delightful one from CNN, which begins: “Some call it the Rolls Royce of chalk, the Steinway of writing utensils.”
Those two plus The Holiday are annual rewatches. Family Stone is at the top of the list.
Clue: pig photo.
The remainder of the year seems very short!
Affirmation: Don't overthink it. Don't overcomplicate it.
I think I have been mentally blocking out the fact that the year is almost over and the holidays are coming.